The King Who Broke Heaven’s Tithe

Chapter 15 The Name She Remembered

Selka did not touch the cloth.

“Tev,” she said.

Jun’s face changed. Until that moment, Daren thought, she had expected another denial. Hearing her brother’s name seemed to hurt more.

“He was seventeen.”

“I remember.”

“Then say where he is.”

Selka looked at the people gathering around them.

“I don’t know.”

Jun slapped her.

The sound cracked across the hall. Selka’s split lip opened again, but she did not raise a hand.

Daren stepped between them before Jun could strike twice.

“Let her answer.”

“She just did.”

“Then let her tell us what she knows.”

Jun tried to push past him. He held her wrists long enough for Pella to draw her back, then released them.

He disliked how easily his body could end an argument his words had not resolved.

They moved the children to the kitchen. Brida stayed by the door, and Iven sat beside Jun. Daren asked Selka whether she wanted water.

She shook her head.

“Larch Hollow owed labor after its lower terraces failed,” she began. “The village head named six people. I witnessed the assessment.”

“Tev wasn’t named,” Jun said.

“No. He volunteered in place of your father.”

“He was told one winter.”

“Yes.”

Selka folded her hands on the table. Blood had reached her collar.

“The first transfer was to a quarry camp below White Stair. I signed it. Three weeks later, a second order moved the strongest workers farther uphill.”

“You signed that too.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“The camp supervisor said they would receive cultivation instruction in exchange for additional service.”

“Additional to what?”

Selka swallowed.

“The agreed term.”

Jun’s chair scraped backward.

Daren did not stop her when she stood. This time, she only walked to the window and gripped the sill.

“Did my brother agree?”

“I never saw his consent.”

“Did you ask for it?”

“No.”

The word stayed in the room.

Daren thought of all the orders he had accepted because the person giving them wore a rank he recognized. That memory did not make Selka less responsible. It made the distance between them smaller than he wanted.

“Who received the second group?” he asked.

“A steward named Arvek. His seal showed a split cedar. The wagons went through Bellcut Pass.”

“Alive?” Jun asked.

“When they left the quarry, yes. After that, I received no list.”

Selka turned toward her.

“I can give you names, dates, and the route. I cannot promise what we will find.”

“We?”

“If you want my help.”

“Then come with me,” Jun said. “Today. Show me the road.”

Selka looked toward Daren, then stopped herself.

“The pass is several days away. I have no provisions, no horse, and no way to get us through the upper camp safely.”

“You had wagons when you sent him.”

“Yes.”

Jun gripped the blue cloth so tightly that the stitches stretched.

Daren wanted to promise an expedition. He could have made the room kinder for a moment by saying the words. But kindness bought with a journey nobody could survive would be another version of the seal in Jun’s hand.

“We will keep the route,” he said. “We will ask travelers. I won’t tell you that means tomorrow.”

Jun looked at him with the same anger she had given Selka.

He let her. There was nothing in his promise to rescue his own son that made her brother less worth saving.

Jun looked at her for a long time.

“I want my brother.”

“I know.”

“No. You know his name.”

Selka lowered her eyes.

Outside, someone began hammering the gate braces. The ordinary sound made the silence around the table feel even larger.

Daren asked for a piece of charcoal. Selka wrote what she remembered on the back of an unused door panel, leaving space where she was uncertain.

Jun corrected the date of Tev’s departure.

Selka crossed out her first mark and wrote the right one.

It was a small action. Daren watched Jun notice it.

When the account was finished, Iven covered the panel with a clean cloth to keep dust from it.

“What happens now?” she asked.

Daren looked at Selka.

She answered before he could.

“I won’t decide who goes beyond the walls or who enters service. Not while people here have reason to fear my orders.”

“Will you still teach us to fight?” Pella asked.

“If you want that.”

Pella nodded. Jun did not.

Brida set three stools beside the table.

“Then any assignment that risks a person outside the fort gets discussed here. By the person going, the person asking, and someone who has no reason to hide the cost.”

Daren looked at the stools.

“That includes mine?”

“Especially yours.”

He agreed.

It was not a court. It was not forgiveness. It was something they could do before another person vanished under an order nobody questioned.

Afterward, Selka sat on the steps while Pella cleaned her lip. Daren waited until the needle was put away.

“You should have told me about the second order.”

“Yes.”

“If Jun hadn’t asked?”

“I don’t know how long I would have waited.”

He appreciated the honesty and hated the answer.

“I need you to stop waiting.”

She nodded once.

Before either could say more, Tovin climbed from the mill stair carrying a wet candle. His boots were soaked to the knee.

“The water’s going the wrong way,” he said.

Brida rose.

“Where?”

“Behind the wheel. Into a passage that wasn’t wet this morning.”

He held out the candle.

Its flame leaned toward the ground.

“Something down there is breathing.”